The Reality of Global Connectivity
Over the last decade millions of copies of software packages for word processing and e-mail have been sold, installed, replaced, upgraded and generally become an indispensable part of the business infrastructure in the vast majority of organisations, whether large or small, IT pioneer or mainstream user, private or public, operating nationally or internationally. Connectivity, which was initially limited to a single organisation or indeed to a single site or department within an organisation, now includes employees working away from the office and external organisations too. Notebook PCs come with a battery of communications features that overcome the obstacles to working remotely with e-mail, and "road warriors" with notebooks and mobile phones gain immediate access from client site, car and airport to their office e-mail system and other service providers' networks.
The Pattern of Change
This explosion in connectivity and the universal availability of standardised software for the office have led to a vast increase in the volume of data transmitted. Equally significant, however, is the change in the profile of this data traffic. Most users are no longer content just to send plain text by e-mail, but wish to append multiple documents and/or files of any type, length and structure.
More and more users have a need to communicate with persons outside their own organisation as well. With electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic commerce, communication occurs between enterprises by definition. The message-oriented communications profile no longer comprises only internal e-mail and stand-alone external fax, but now often includes the integrated internal and external transfer of complex messages and multimedia objects. The increasing importance of workflow management is strongly supporting this trend.
Messaging Solves Business Problems
To satisfy these ever more demanding communication and messaging requirements effectively, many organisations need to enhance their IT infrastructure in a major way. A growing number of IT managers have discovered that this includes replacing their current e-mail application if this only supports interpersonal e-mail, or - if sufficient investment funds are unavailable for a replacement - installing additional software which provides the extra messaging functionality needed. These managers are introducing a modern messaging infrastructure that delivers a full spectrum of features providing the flexibility and functionality needed to satisfy employees', customers' and partners' expectations in the future.
Global messaging is no longer an exotic option chosen only by leading-edge IT organisations. It has come of age and now represents the mainstream. At NET-TEL we recognised at an early date that many organisations would need advanced-function messaging and developed Route400 products to solve the very real problems faced.
Overcoming Barriers
Because the need to communicate between enterprises and between different divisions of large organisations is growing quickly, difficulties naturally arise if the e-mail systems are not compatible. There are two approaches to this problem: either a gateway is installed to convert formats and protocols from each system's to the other's, or all systems use a commonly accepted standard as the basis of interconnection. Installing, administering and supporting multiple gateways costs unnecessary time and money. Using a standardised approach adds value.
Benefits of Standards
The advantages of using a standardised approach are great: each proprietary system needs to perform only one type of conversion, a standard does not favour the ideas of any particular supplier or manufacturer as all have an equal opportunity to influence the standard, and standards, especially when internationally adopted and accepted, are stable and not subject to sudden change. This last point does not inhibit improvements; it does ensure, though, that upwards compatibility is always guaranteed. The X.400 standard has been steadily enhanced from its initial version in 1984 and has now achieved universal acceptance. No company has more experience with X.400 than NET-TEL. Organisations selecting us as their supplier of messaging software products will benefit from this unrivalled experience and achieve significant productivity increases.
Other NET-TEL white papers:
Meeting the Information Challenge
Why Route400 and Route500?
